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did windows easy transfer and pulled bookmarks and password profile from old xp system, why won't Firefox recognise the profile and show bookmarks, etc?

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  • Last reply by RAYD

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I LOCATED THE PROFILE THAT TRANSFERRED FROM THE OLD XP COMPUTER. I'M NOT COMPUTER LITERATE SO I DON'T RELATE THAT THE FILE HAS NOT PUT THE DATA INTO BOOKMARKS AND PASSWORDS. I DID THIS A FEW WEEKS AGO AND FIREFOX PICKED UP AND DISPLAYED THE INFO WHEN IT FELT LIKE IT! DELL HAD TO DO AN OPERATING SOFTWARE RELOAD AND I'M STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN.

HOW DOES THE DATA GET PICKED UP AND LOADED INTO FIREFOX TO USE IT. WENT FROM XP TO WINDOWS 7/SP1

I LOCATED THE PROFILE THAT TRANSFERRED FROM THE OLD XP COMPUTER. I'M NOT COMPUTER LITERATE SO I DON'T RELATE THAT THE FILE HAS NOT PUT THE DATA INTO BOOKMARKS AND PASSWORDS. I DID THIS A FEW WEEKS AGO AND FIREFOX PICKED UP AND DISPLAYED THE INFO WHEN IT FELT LIKE IT! DELL HAD TO DO AN OPERATING SOFTWARE RELOAD AND I'M STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN. HOW DOES THE DATA GET PICKED UP AND LOADED INTO FIREFOX TO USE IT. WENT FROM XP TO WINDOWS 7/SP1

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G'day RAYD,

Please follow the steps documented at Recovering important data from an old profile and reply here if you have problems at any step. Specifically bookmarks are stored in places.sqlite and password are stored in key3.db and signons.sqlite (both files are required).

Please mind that Firefox generates random names for profile directories: d not copy the entire profile directories, as their name won't work on another computer; instead, copy profile folder contents.

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Chosen Solution

G'day RAYD,

Please follow the steps documented at Recovering important data from an old profile and reply here if you have problems at any step. Specifically bookmarks are stored in places.sqlite and password are stored in key3.db and signons.sqlite (both files are required).

Please mind that Firefox generates random names for profile directories: d not copy the entire profile directories, as their name won't work on another computer; instead, copy profile folder contents.

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Made the new folder for the profile and copied the 3 files into it. I don't see where Firefox named it for use on this computer. Right now I have 4 profiles including the new one created. Like I stated, i'm not computer literate!

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Best would be to delete all profiles that you have created to avoid confusion on which you are using.

You can use the Profile Manager to delete the profiles more easily and the files (click "Delete Files").

If there are still profiles left that aren't registered in profiles.ini and thus do not show in the Profile Manager then you can delete the files manually (e.g. with Windows Explorer).

Then you can create a new default profile and you can manually copy the files with Firefox closed from the backup to this profile folder.

You can use this button to go to the current Firefox profile folder:

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder
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LET'S SAY I'M NOT COMPUTER LITERATE, I'M STUPID! ALL THIS HELP IS CONFUSING ME MORE. IF I UNDERSTOOD WHAT I WAS BEING SENT TO I WOULDN'T BE ASKING FOR HELP.

I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT A COMPUTER AND NEED THE DOG AND PONY VERSION. IE. WINDOWS EXPLORER, DON'T KNOW WHAT IT DOES, NEVER USED OR WENT TO IT BEFORE!

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If you want to restore data from a Firefox profile folder of another computer then you need to copy the specific files that store this data to the current profile folder.
It is not recommended to copy the full contents of the profile folder, but rather copy only specific files like SQLite database files and possibly restore the bookmarks from a JSON backup

You can use this button to go to the Firefox profile folder:

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder

Which data do you want to restore?

  • places.sqlite stores the history and bookmarks and there are also JSON backups in the bookmarkbackups folder
  • cookies.sqlite stores the cookies
  • the two files signons.sqlite and key3.db are needed for the passwords stored in the Password Manager
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NOW THAT ONE IS UNDERSTANDABLE EVEN FOR ME! THANK YOU